dine with the neighboring clergymen, and frequently made one at their
parties. In the beginning, his high opinion and awe of the clerical
character kept him remarkably dull and sheepish. Many an excellent joke
was cracked at his expense; and often did he ask himself what Phadrick
Murray, his father's family, or his acquaintances in general, would
say, if they saw his learning and his logic so villanously degraded.
In proportion, however, as conviviality developed among his reverend
friends many defects, opinions, and failings, which he never suspected
them to possess, so did he begin to gather courage and facility of
expression. By degrees he proceeded modestly from the mild and timid
effort at wit to the steadier nerve of moderate confidence--another step
brought him to the indifference of a man who can bear an unsuccessful
attempt at pleasantry, without being discomposed; the third and last
stage advanced him to downright assurance, which having reached, he
stopped at nothing. From this forward he began to retort upon his
clerical companions, who found that the sheepish youth whom they had
often made ridiculous, possessed skill, when properly excited, to foil
them at their own weapons. He observed many things in their convivial
meetings. The holy man, whom his flock looked upon as a being of the
highest sanctity, when lit up into fun and frolic, Denis learned to
estimate at his just value. He thought, besides, that a person resolved
to go to heaven, had as good a chance of being saved by the direct
mercy of God, as through the ministration of men, whose only spiritual
advantage over himself consisted in the mere fact of being in orders.
To be sure, he saw the usual exceptions among them that are to be found
among every other class; but he drew his conclusions from the general
rule. All this, however, failed in removing that fundamental principle
of honest superstition in which he had been trained. The clergymen whom
he saw were only a few who constituted the great body of the church; but
when the long and sanctified calendar of saints and miracles opened
upon him, there still remained enough to throw a dim and solemn charm of
shadowy pomp around the visions of a mind naturally imaginative.
Messengers were once more sent abroad, to inform their friends of his
triumph, who, on ascertaining that his journey was fixed for an early
day, lost no time in pouring in, each with some gift suited to
their circumstances. Some of these were certainly original, the
appropriateness having been in every case determined by the wealth or
poverty, ignorance, or knowledge, of those who offered them. Some poor
relation, for instance, brought him a shirt or two of materials so
coarse, that to wear it in a college would be out of the question;
others offered him a pair of brogues, much too vulgar for the society he
was about to enter; others, again, would present him with books--for
it is not at all uncommon to find in many illiterate Irish families
half-a-dozen old volumes of whose contents they are ignorant, lying in
a dusty corner, where they are kept till some young scion shall be
sufficiently instructed to peruse them. The names of these were singular
enough. One presented him with “The Necessity of Penance;” another with
“Laugh and be Fat;” a third with the “Key of Paradise;” a fourth
with “Hell Open;” a fifth handed him a copy of the “Irish Rogues and
Rapparees; a sixth gave him “Butler's Lives of Saints;” a seventh “The
Necessity of Fasting;” an eighth “The Epicure's _Vade Mecum_.” The list
ran on very ludicrously. Among them were the “Garden of Love and Royal
Flower of Fidelity;” “An Essay on the Virtue of Celibacy;” and another
“On the Increase of Population in Ireland.” To these we may add “The
Devil upon Two Sticks,” and “The Life of St. Anthony.”
“Take these, Misther Denis,” said the worthy souls; “they're of no use
to us at all at all; but they'll sarve you, of coorse, where you're
goin', bekase when you want books in the college you can use them.”
Honest Phadrick Murray, in lieu of a more valuable present, brought him
his wife's largest and best shawl as a pocket handkerchief.
“Katty, sir, sent you this,” said Phadrick, “as a pocket handkerchy; an'
be gorra, Mither Denis, if you begin at this corner, an' take it out o'
the face, it'll last you six months at a time, any how.”
Another neighbor came with a _cool_ of rendered lard, hoping it might be
serviceable.
“Norah, sir,” said the honest friend who brought it, “sent you a' crock
of her own lard. When, you're makin' colcanon, sir, or _sthilk_,* in
the college, if you slip in a lamp of this, it'll save you the price of
bufther. The grace 'ill be useful to you, whether or not; an' they say
there's a scarcity of it in the college.”.
* Sthilk is made by bruising a quantity of boiled
Potatoes and beans together. The potatoes, however,
having first been reduced to a pulpy state, the beans
are but partially broken. It is then put into dish, and
a pound of butter or rendered lard thrust into the
middle of it.
A third brought him an oak sapling to keep in his hand about the
purlieus of the establishment.
“We know,” said he, “that you're given to arguin' an' to that thing
you call logic, Misther Denis. Now, sir, if you're ever hard set in
an argument or the like o' that, or if any o' the shthudjeents 'ud be
throuble-some or imperant, why give them a touch o' this--a lick of it,
do you see; jist this a way. First come wid a back sthroke upon the left
ear, if they want to be properly convinced; an' thin agin' afore they
have time to recover, come down wid a visitation upon the kidney, My
life for yours, they'll soon let you alone. Nothin' puzzles one in an
argument more than it does.”
“Ay,” said Denis, “that is what they call--in the books the _argumentum
baculinum_. I accept your present, Roger; but I flatter myself I shall
be a match for any of the collegians without having recourse to the
argumentum baculinum.”
A poor old widow, who was distantly related to them, came upwards of
four miles with two or three score of eggs, together with a cock and
hen; the eggs for his own use, and the latter for breeding in Maynooth.
“Avourneen, Misther O'Shaughnessy,” said she, in broken English, “when
you ate out all the eggs, maybe you could get a sonsy little corner
about the collegian that you're goin' to larn to be a priest in, an'
put them both into it; “--pointing at the same time to the cock and
hen--“an' whishper,” she continued, in a low friendly voice, “if you
could get a weeshy wisp o' sthraw, an slip it undher your own bed, it
would make a nest for them, an' they'd lay an egg for your breakfast all
days in the year. But, achora, don't let them be widout a nest egg; an'
whishper--maybe you'd breed a clackin' out o' them, that you might
sell. Sure they'd help to buy duds of cloes for you; or you might make
presents of the crathurs to the blessed an' holy collegian himself.
Wouldn't it be good to have him an your side?--He'd help to make a
gintleman of you, any way. Faix, sure he does it for many, they say. An'
whishper--the breed, avourneen, is good; an' I'm not afeard to say that
there never was sich a chicken in the whole collegian, as the ould cock
himself. He's the darlin' all out, an' can crow so stoutly, that it
bates the world. Sure his comb's a beauty to look at, the darlin'; an'
only it's to yourself, an' in regard of the blessed place he's goin' to,
I wouldn't part wid him to nobody whatsomever, at all, good or bad.”
The most original gift of all was a purse, formed of a small bladder,
ingeniously covered with silk. It was given to him by his uncle, as a
remembrance of him, in the first place; and secondly, for a more special
purpose.
“This will sarve you, sir,” said his uncle, “an' I'll tell you how: if
you want to smuggle in a sup of good whiskey--as of coorse you will,
plase goodness--why this houlds exactly a pint, an' is the very thing
for it. The sorra one among them will ever think of searchin' your
purse, at least for whiskey. Put it in your pocket, Misther Dionmsis;
an' I'd take it as a great kindness if you'd write me a scrape or two of
the pen, mentionin' what a good parish 'ud be worth: you'll soon be able
to tell me, for I've some notion myself of puttin' Barny to Latin.”
Denis was perfectly aware of the honest warmth of heart with which these
simple tokens of esteem were presented to him; and young as he was,
his knowledge of their habits and prejudices prevented him from
disappointing them by a refusal. He consequently accepted everything
offered him, appropriated to himself whatever was suitable to his wants,
converted the remainder into pocket-money, and, of course, kept his
conscience void of offence toward them all: a state of Christian virtue
which his refusal of any one gift would have rendered difficult.
On the day before his departure the friends and relations of the family
assembled to hold their farewell meeting. The same spirit which marked
all their rustic symposia presided in this; if we except a feeling of
sorrow natural to his family on being separated from one they loved so
affectionately. Denis, who was never deficient in warmth of feeling,
could not be insensible to the love and pride with which his family had
always looked upon him. Ambition, as he approached it, lost much of
its fictitious glitter. A sense of sorrow, if not of remorse, for the
fastidious and overbearing spirit he had manifested to them, pressed
upon his heart. Pride, in fact, was expelled; nature resumed her empire
over him; he looked upon the last two months of his life as a man would
be apt to do who had been all that time under the dominion of a feverish
dream. We do not say, however, that either ambition or superstition was
thoroughly expelled from his mind; for it is hard at all times to root
them out of the system of man: but they ceased to govern him altogether.
A passion, too, as obstinate as either of them, was determined to
dispute their power. The domestic affections softened his heart; but
love, which ambition left for dead, was only stunned; it rose again, and
finding a favorable position, set its seal to his feelings.
Denis himself, some days before that appointed for his departure, became
perfectly conscious that his affections were strongly fixed upon Susan
Connor. The nature of their last interview filled him with shame; nay,
more, it inspired him with pity for the fair, artless girl whom he
had so unfeelingly insulted. The manner in which he had won her young
affections; the many tender interviews that had passed between them; the
sacred promises of unchangeable love they had made to each other: all
crowded to his imagination with a power which reduced his spiritual
ambition and ecclesiastical pride, at least to the possession only of a
divided empire. He had, therefore, with his book in his hand as
usual, taken many solitary walks for the preceding few days, with the
expectation of meeting Susan. He heard that for the last month or six
weeks she had looked ill, been in low spirits, and lost her health. The
cause of this change, though a secret to the world, was known to him. He
knew, indeed, that an interview between them was indispensable; but had
it not been so, we question whether he would have been able to leave
home without seeing her.
His evening strolls, however, up until the day before his setting out
for college, were fruitless. Susan, who heretofore had been in the habit
of walking in the evenings among the green dells around her father's
house, was ever since their last meeting almost invisible. In the
meantime, as the day before that of his leaving the neighborhood had
arrived, and as an interview with her was, in a religious point of view,
essentially necessary, he took his book in the course of the evening,
and by a path slightly circuitous, descended the valley that ran between
his father's house and hers. With solemn strides he perambulated it in
every direction--north, south, east, and west; not a natural bower in
the glen was unexplored; not a green, quiet nook unsearched; not a shady
tree unexam-ined; but all to no purpose. Yet, although he failed in
meeting herself, a thousand objects brought her to his heart. Every
dell, natural bower, and shady tree, presented him with a history of
their past affections. Here was the spot where, with beating heart
and crimson cheek, she had first breathed out in broken music the
acknowledgment of her love; there had another stolen meeting, a thousand
times the sweeter for being stolen, taken place. Every spot, in fact,
was dear to him, and every object associated itself with delightful
emotions that kindled new life in a spirit from which their parent
affections had not yet passed away.
Denis now sought the only other place where he had any likelihood of
meeting her: this was at the well below her father's house. He walked
down along the banks of the little stream that ran past it, until he
reached a thorn bush that grew within a few yards of the spring. Under
this he sat, anxiously hoping that Susan might come to fill her evening
pail, as he knew she was wont to do. A thick flowery branch of the
hawthorn, for it was the latter end of May, hung down from the trunk,
and served as a screen through which he could observe her should she
appear, without being visible himself.
It was now the hour of twilight; the evening was warm and balmy; the
whitethorn tinder which he sat, and the profusion of wild flowers that
spangled the bosom of the green glen, breathed their fragrance around
him, and steeped, the emotions and remembrances which crowded thickly
on him in deep and exquisite tenderness. Up in the air he heard the
quavering hum of the snipe, as it rose and fell in undulating motion,
and the creak of the rail in many directions around him. From an
adjoining meadow in the distance, the merry voices of the village
children came upon his ear, as they gathered the wild honey which
dropped like dew from the soft clouds upon the long grassy stalks, and
meadow-sweet, on whose leaves it lay like amber. He remembered when
he and Susan, on meeting there for a similar purpose, felt the first
mysterious pleasure in being together, and the unaccountable melancholy
produced by separation and absence.
At length he heard a footstep; but he could not persuade himself that
the slow and lingering tread of the person approaching him was that
of Susan, so much did it differ from the buoyant and elastic step with
which she used to trip along. On looking through the branches, however,
he perceived her coming towards him, carrying the pitcher as usual in
her hand. The blood was already careering at full speed through his
veins, and the palpitations of his heart were loud enough to be heard by
the ear.
Oh, beauty, beauty! _terrima causa belli_, thou dost play the devil with
the hearts of men! Who is there who doth not wish to look upon thee,
from the saint to the sinner?--None. For thee worlds have been lost;
nations swept off the earth; thrones overturned; and cities laid in
ashes! Adam, David, Marc Antony, Abelard, and Denis O'Shaughnessy,
exhibit histories of thy power never to be forgotten, but the greatest
of these is Denis O'Shaughnessy.
Susan was about the middle size; her tresses, like those of the
daughters of her country, were a fair brown, and abundant. Her features
were not such, we admit, as mark regular and scientific perfection,
and perhaps much of their power was owing to their not being altogether
symmetrical. Her great charm consisted in a spirit of youthful
innocence, so guileless that the very light of purity and truth seemed
to break in radiance from her countenance. Her form was round, light,
and flexible. When she smiled her face seemed to lose the character of
its mortality--so seraphic and full of an indescribable spell were its
lineaments; that is, the spell was felt by its thrilling influence
upon the beholder, rather than by any extraordinary perception of her
external beauty. The general expression of her countenance, however, was
that of melancholy. No person could look upon her! white forehead and
dark flashing eyes, without perceiving that she was full of tenderness
and enthusiasm; but let the light of cheerfulness fall upon her face,
and you wished never to see it beam with any other spirit. In her met
those extremes of character peculiar to her country. Her laughing lips
expanded with the playful delicacy of mirth, or breathed forth, with
untaught melody and deep pathos, her national songs of sorrow.
A little before she made her appearance, the moon had risen and softened
with her dewy light the calm secluded scene around them. Denis, too, had
an opportunity of seeing the lovely girl more distinctly. Her dress was
simple but becoming. Her hair, except the side ringlets that fell to
heighten the beauty of her neck, was bound up with a comb which Denis
himself had presented to her. She wore a white dimity bedgown, that sat
close to her well-formed person, descended below her knee, and opened
before; the sleeves of it did not reach the elbow, but displayed an arm
that could not be surpassed for whiteness and beauty. The bedgown was
frilled about the shoulder, which it covered, leaving the neck only, and
the upper part of her snowy bosom, visible. A dark ribbon, tied about
her waist, threw her figure into exquisite outline, and gave her that
simple elegance which at once bespeaks the harmony of due proportion.
On reaching the well she filled her vessel, and placed it on a small
mound beside her; then sitting down, she mused for some time, and
turning her eyes towards Denis's father's sighed deeply.
“It's the least,” said the humble girl, “that I may look towards the
house that the only one I ever loved, or ever will love, lives in.
Little I thought when I loved him that I was standin' between him an'
God. Loved him! I wish I could say it was past. I wish I could: for I am
afeared that till my weak heart breaks it will love him still. God pity
me! It would be well for me I had never seen him! But why he should go
to Maynooth without givin' me back my promise I cannot tell.”
Denis rose and approached her. Susan, on seeing him, started, and her
lover could perceive that she hastily wiped the tears from her eyes. A
single glance, however, convinced her that it was he; and such was the
guileless simplicity of her heart, joined to the force of habit, that
her face beamed with one of her wonted smiles at his appearance. This
soon passed away, and her features again resumed an expression of deep
melancholy. Our hero now forgot his learning; his polysyllables were
laid aside, and his pedantry utterly abandoned. His pride, too, was
gone, and the petty pomp of artificial character thing aside like an
unnecessary garment which only oppresses the wearer.
“Susan,” said he, “I am sorry to see you look so pale and unhappy.
I deeply regret it; and I could not permit this day to pass, without
seeing and speaking to you. If I go to-morrow, Susan, may I now ask in
what light will you remember me?”
“I'll remember you without anger, Denis; with sorrow will I remember
you, but not, as I said, in anger; though God knows, and you know, the
only token you lave me to remember you by is a broken heart.”
“Susan,” said Denis, “it was an unhappy attachment, as circumstances
have turned out; and I wish for both our sakes we had never loved one
another. For some time past my heart has been torn different ways, and,
to tell you the truth, I acknowledge that within the last three or four
months I have been little less than a villain to you.”
“You speak harshly of yourself, Denis; I hope, more so than you
deserve.”
“No, Susy. With my heart fixed upon other hopes, I continued to draw
your affections closer and closer to me.”
“Well, that was wrong, Denis; but you loved me long before that time,
an' it's not so asy a thing to draw away the heart from what we love;
that is, to draw it away for ever, Denis, even although greater things
may rise up before us.”
As she pronounced the last words, her voice, which she evidently strove
to keep firm, became unsteady.
“That's true, Susan, I know it; but I will never forgive myself for
acting a double part to you and to the world. There is not a pang you
suffer but ought to fall as a curse upon my head, for leading you into
greater confidence, at a time when I was not seriously resolved to
fulfil my vows to you.”
“Denis,” said the unsuspecting girl, “you're imposin' on yourself--you
never could do so bad, so treacherous an act as that. No, you never
could, Denis; an', above all the world, to a heart that loved and
trusted you as mine did. I won't believe it, even from your own lips.
You surely loved me, Denis, and in that case you couldn't be desateful
to me.”
“I did love you; but I never loved you half so well as I ought, Susy;
and I never was worthy of you. Susy, I tell you--I tell you--my heart
is breaking for your sake. It would have been well for both of us we had
never seen, or known, or loved each other; for I know by my own heart
what you must suffer.”
“Denis, don't be cast down on my account; before I ever thought of you,
when I was runnin' about the glens here, a lonely little orphan, I was
often sorry, without knowin' why. Sometimes I used to wonder at it,
and search my mind to find out what occasioned it: but I never could.
I suppose it was because I saw other girls, like myself, havin' their
little brothers an' sisters to play with or because I had no mother's
voice to call me night or mornin', or her bosom to lay my head on, if I
was sick or tired. I suppose it was this. Many a time, Denis, even then,
I knew what sorrow was, and I often thought that, come what would to
others, there was sorrow before me. I now find I was right; but for all
that, Denis, it's betther that we should give up one another in time,
than be unhappy by my bein' the means of turning you from the ways and
duties of God.”
The simple and touching picture which she drew of her orphan childhood,
together with the tone of resignation and sorrow which ran through all
she said, affected Denis deeply.
“Susan,” he replied, “I am much changed of late. The prospect before me
is a dark one--a mysterious one. It is not many months since my head
was dizzy with the gloomy splendor which the pomps and ceremonies of the
Church--soon, I trust, to be restored in this country to all her pride
and power--presented to my imagination. But I have mingled with those on
whom before this--that is, during my boyhood--I looked with awe, as on
men who held vested in themselves some mysterious and spiritual power. I
have mingled with them, Susan, and I find them neither better nor worse
than those who still look upon them as I once did.”
“Well, but, Denis, how does that bear upon your views?”
“It does, Susan. I said I have found them neither better nor worse than
their fellow-creatures; but I believe they are not so happy. I think
I could perceive a gloom, even in their mirth, that told of some
particular thought or care that haunted them like a spirit. Some of
them and not a few, in the moments of undisguised feeling, dissuaded me
against ever entering the Church.”
“I am sure they're happy,” said Susan. “Some time ago, accordin' to your
own words, you thought the same; but something has turned your heart
from the good it was fixed upon. You're in a dangerous time, Denis; and
it's not to be wondhered at, if the temptations of the devil should thry
you now, in hopes to turn you from the service of God. This is a warnin'
to me, too, Denis. May Heaven above forbid that I should be made the
means of temptin' you from the duty that's before you!”
“No, Susan, dear, it's not temptation, but the fear of temptation, that
prevails with me.”
“But, Denis, surely if you think yourself not worthy to enter that
blessed state, you have time enough to avoid it.”
“Ay, but, Susy, there is the difficulty. I am now so placed that I can
hardly go back. First, the disgrace of refusing to enter the Church
would lie upon me as if I had committed a crime. Again, I would break my
father's and my mother's heart: and rather than do that, I could almost
submit to be miserable for life. And finally, I could not live in the
family, nor bear the indignation of my brothers and other relations. You
know, Susan, as well as I do, the character attached to those who put
their friends to the expense of educating them for the Church, who raise
their hopes and their ambition, and afterwards disappoint them.”
“I know it.”
“This, Susan, dear, prevails with me. Besides, the Church now is likely
to rise from her ruins. I believe that if a priest did his duty,
he might possibly possess miraculous power. There is great pomp and
splendor in her ceremonies, a sense of high and boundless authority in
her pastors; there is rank in her orders sufficient even for ambition.
Then the deference, the awe, and the humility with which they are
approached by the people--ah! Susan, there is much still in the
character of a priest for the human heart to covet. The power of
saying mass, of forgiving sin, of relieving the departed spirits of the
faithful in another world, and of mingling in our holy sacrifices, with
the glorious worship of the cherubims, or angels, in heaven--all this is
the privilege of a priest, and what earthly rank can be compared to it?”
“None at all, Denis--none at all. Oh, think this way still, and let no
earthly temptation--no--don't let--even me--what am I?--a poor humble
girl--oh! no, let nothing keep you back from this.”
The tears burst from her eyes, however, as she spoke.
“But, Denis,” she added, “there is one thing that turns my brain. I fear
that, even afther your ordination, I couldn't look upon you as I would
upon another man. Oh, my heart would break if one improper thought of it
was fixed upon you then.”
“Susy, hear me. I could give up all, but you. I could bear to disappoint
father, mother, and all; but the thought of giving you up for ever is
terrible. I have been latterly in a kind of dream. I have been among
friends and relatives until my brain was turned; but now I am restored
to myself, and I find I cannot part with you. I would gladly do it;
but I cannot. Oh, no, Susan, dear, my love for you was dimmed by other
passions; but it was not extinguished. It now burns stronger and purer
in my heart than ever. It does--it does. And, Susan, I always loved
you.”